Health minister asks hospitals to tighten waste management

HA NOI (VNS) — The Ministry of Health has requested that directors of health departments of provinces and cities strictly handle violations of medical waste management procedures at hospitals, in a directive released yesterday.

The directive was issued after authorities found some hospitals causing environment pollution due to their discarding medical waste. Environmental police recently found untreated medical waste illegally buried near Le Ngoc Tung Hospital - a private general hospital in the southern province of Tay Ninh.

Directors of provincial health departments are requested to act as advisors for provincial People's Committees to prioritise and allocate sufficient financial resources to build medical waste treatment systems for hospitals and to compile a list of medical facilities causing serious environment pollution.

Further, hospital directors are to be required to keep close supervision of medical waste disposal and perform regular inspections to assure waste is properly disposed of. Also, the health ministry was requested to strictly punish those violating regulations relating to medical waste classification, collection, transport and treatment.

Based upon the directive, the ministry's Medical Examination and Treatment Management Department is being asked to research and add medical waste management to the criteria for hospital quality evaluation. — VNS